Assignments

Critical Essay & Questions Presentation and Roundtable (20%) -- You will be a required to sign up in small groups for an oral presentation and roundtable during the course of the semester. For your presentation, you will read the literary text assigned for a particular week, summarize and articulate two or three main points from the week’s scholarly or critical text (as assigned), generate a critical question connecting the theory to the literature, and contribute to in-class and online discussion for the week.

Critical Reflections (30%) -- Over the course of the semester, you will have approximately five opportunities to complete short, analytical reflections that ask you to respond to the literature, the theoretical texts, and to assess your own work and performance in class. These reflections will be due (tentatively) at the end of Week 3, 6, 9, 12, and Week 15. You must complete three of the five opportunities, one of which must be in the first half of the term and one in the second half.

Creative Response (10%) -- Not only will you be reading science fiction and speculative literature, you will generate a creative response to demonstrate the ideas, goals, and critiques of the literatures of the course. You will create your own SF as a short-short story, narrative poem, or drawing. The creative response will be evaluated on completion and your thoughtful engagement with the prompt.

Critical Review (10%) -- At the end of the term, you will write a short, 500 word, single-spaced critical review of a text not covered by the course that you believe fits the critical, theoretical, and intellectual stakes of this class. You will locate a text, close read the text, and generate an academic critique and assessment of the text’s value for study. In other words, what text might you include in a class like ours? You must have your text approved by the instructor. The critical review will be turned in and published on the course blog.

Information Sheets

The following are handouts, informational sheets, and readings that will be assigned or used over the course of the quarter. Each student will recieve a copy of each as a handout in class during the appropriate week. If you miss a sheet, feel free to print out a new copy.

Ed's Top Ten List of "Ways to Survive University"

Ed's Top Ten Rules of Writing

What is Close Reading?

How to Write a Summary

Claims, Claims, Claims

Introductions & Conclusions

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

MLA Citation and Bibliographic Format

Revision Check-List

Readings

Course texts are available via the Ohio University online bookstore (or through any reputable bookseller). Shorter readings are available via the course Blackboard. The required texts for this class are:

Butler, Duffy, Jennings. Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation. Hopkinson, Nalo. Brown Girl in the Ring. Lai, Larissa. The Tiger Flu. Nguyen, Qui. She Kills Monsters. Okorafor, Nnedi. Binti.

Consult the course syllabus for the week's required reading. The following is a full bibliographical list of the class readings:

Adams, Rachel, Benjamin Reiss, and David Serlin. "Disability." Keywords for Disability Studies. NYU Press. 29 May 2018. https://keywords.nyupress.org/disability-studies/essay/disability/. Aultman, B. "Cisgender." Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a 21st Century Transgender Studies. Spec. issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1.1-2 (2014) 61-62. Burgett, Bruce. "Sex." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 217-221, Butler, Octavia, Damian Duffy, and John Jennings. Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation. Abrams ComicArts, 2020. Ferguson, Robert A. "Race." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 191-196. Georgiou, Myria. "Identity." Keywords for Media Studies. Eds. Laurie Ouellette and Jonathan Gray. NYU Press, 2017. 94-98. Gray, Herman. "Race." Keywords for Media Studies. Eds. Laurie Ouellette and Jonathan Gray. NYU Press, 2017. 61-164. Halberstam, Judith. "Gender." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 116-120. Hopkinson, Nalo. Brown Girl in the Ring. Warner Books, 1998. Lai, Larissa. The Tiger Flu. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018. Nguyen, Qui. She Kills Monsters: Young Adventurer's Edition. Samuel French, 2016. Okorafor, Nnedi. Binti. Tor, 2015. Somerville, Siobhan B. "Queer." Keywords for American Cultural Studies. Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler. New York: NYU Press, 2007. 187-191. Williams, Cristan. "Transgender." Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a 21st Century Transgender Studies. Spec. issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1.1-2 (2014) 232-234. Print.

Media

Here is a list of the other media we will be using:

The Wandering Earth. Directed by Frant Gwo, Netflix, 2019.

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